Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Somewhere, once, i read someone quote Jean Cocteau about wanting to hear Picasso's guitars. At the time i wasn't aware of Picasso's paintings of guitars, so to me it was a completely ethereal idea. The concept of cubism applied directly to the sound of a guitar, was my understanding, not wanting to hear the instruments themselves. So i thought to myself:

Alright, let's get something out of the way. It is Hallowe'en. Despite what spell checkers and search engines will have you believe, it's Hallowe'en. Not halloween. Got it? Good.

Having said that (and realizing that language/spelling is an ongoing fluid thing) It wasn't much of one. Not hear anyway. At work we had nearly 100% of staff in costume, lot's of fun. Last night I decorated the house. Cobwebs on the bushes, a phony tombstone, carved two Jack O'Lanterns, skulls on stakes in the lawn. Lot's of fun. Tonight we bought extra candy (just in case), and ordered Chinese food so as not to be occupied with cooking, also lot's of fun. We had twenty-one trick-or-treaters. :-|

21.

That's it.

Not fun.

Boo.

Not that kind of boo, Boooo!

Maybe it's the lack of time change. Maybe it's the lone house on the block giving out candy, perhaps it's the busy street. Twenty-one!? Last year (at the condo) was slow, we only had about 50. Our first year there we ran out of candy, turned out the lights and went to the horse track. Twenty-one. Sheesh. I was going to wear my costume while giving out candy. I took it off for dinner, and never put it back on. For the first time since living in an apartment building we made it through our entire Hallowe'en dinner without having to answer the door.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Add another one to the repertoire. I have installed a new toilet. Fairly straightforward, actually. In the past I have replaced a seat (very simple), replaced the water control/flush assembly with a newer water saving one (ultimately more complex and time consuming than replacing the toilet, how odd) and the tank. I didn't so much replace the tank as i took it off and put it back on. That was necessary to install the new flush assembly. But all of that was at the condo....

The upstairs toilet here at the new house rocked from side to side. Something we were meaning to fix. Then, on Friday night, water started dripping into the basement, via the basement bathroom ceiling. The culprit? The upstairs toilet. So we bought a new one, at RONA. They sell a kit. (likely other retailers do the same) Toilet, tank, seat, nuts, bolts, seal, supply line. Everything in a box. the instructions were rudimentary. basically you put the seal in the toilet and put the toilet on the bolts. The hard/time consuming/dirty part is removing the old wax from under the old toilet. It doesn't stay attached to the toilet, oh no. It stays attached to the flange on the floor. Oh well, that's life. The water control and flush assembly were pre-installed, so i didn't need to consult the directions for that or for the seat or for the tank. Alright! I think it looks better than the old toilet (not that a toilet is every pretty or anything). We'll just have to wait and see if i installed it correctly. I believe our diagnosis to be correct.

You see, the floor in the bathroom and the front hall and the kitchen is tile. the rest of the house is hardwood. The tile is noticeably higher than the wood. Because of this and because the house is old and the floors not level the old toilet wasn't seated properly and rocked from side to side. as no water ever leaked onto the floor , and the one closet bolt was quite rusted i believe the leak to have been through the seal and onto the outside of the drain pipe. Let's hope i was right. :)

FLATWOUNDS

In other news, i have put flatwound strings on my Telecaster. I've been curious about them for years and i'm not sure why i didn't do it sooner. No more pick scrapes for me, but so what!? Warmer "broken in" tone from the get go, smoother feel under the fingertips, none of that Veruca Salt sliding sound (well, maybe SOME of it with high gain). Right on! Oh wait, i can do pick scrapes, weird.